Question about the ending! Spoiler! - Toast (2010) Discussion

[–] filmfancy 12 years ago

Nigel didn't like Mrs. Potter from the start. He didn't want her to replace his mother. He didn't like it when his father left him alone at night to go out with her (I thought this was quite negligent of his father). And then when his father decided he wanted to live with her and bought a house in the country, Nigel was really upset. It only got worse because she engaged in a kind of rivalry with Nigel to impress his father with good cooking. Both she and Nigel were good cooks, but she saw Nigel as a threat. Her cooking skills were all she believed she had, so she tried to undermine Nigel.

Because he never liked her, and because his father never took his feelings into consideration, just uprooting Nigel and moving him to the country, Nigel finally felt free when his father died and didn't want anything more to do with Mrs. Potter.

"And all the pieces matter"

reply

[–] taxvictim 12 years ago

And yet she initially offered to teach him to bake a cake, and he said no because she was wearing his mother's apron. If he really wanted to learn to cook, Mrs. Potter was right there.

reply

[–] Paula57 12 years ago

I agree. I felt he was needlessly harsh towards his stepmother. Considering that it says at the end he never saw Mrs. Potter again just makes him seem like an egotistical prick. It's certainly not the first time that personality type has become a food critic.

reply

[–] themightybernie 12 years ago

totally agree!Funny how your perspective "colours" reality.

Kids will always feel that a step-parent is "evil" for "replacing" a birth parent.He really should've picked her brain earlier, although maybe the competition pushed him more than assistance would have.

Felt Mrs.Potter was unfairly demonized, sure I am not alone.

Also felt some of the story had to have been fictionalized, how could you find out your dad died and just immediately walk away (no funeral arrangements, nothing).

Everytime something like that happens,an evil wizard did it!-Xena on "the Simpsons"

reply

[–] Montserrat23 12 years ago

I agree with the other posters. Nigel hated Joan from the beginning, he was class-conscious and full of scorn, a pretty detestable attitude indeed. I thought that he was a total jerk all along and that's the problem with this movie: the main character is not likable at all. I also think that the dad was too weak and getting away from things, he should have addressed the problem more efficiently and shown more love to his son. All the problem comes from the fact that Nigel believes that his father doesn't love him (maybe it's true BTW) and he rejects everything coming from him and Joan Potter is one of the victims of this bad situation.

reply

[–] Yabeina (188) 3 years ago

Interesting way of looking at it. Yes, the classism was detestable, but to me that's just a British background detail. "Common" - in other countries, other categories would be used, but it's everywhere and it didn't stand out for me.

What stood out for me was that all his parents and wannabe parents were somewhat failures. They weren't emotionally connected to him, but again that's very common. The first half of the movie was depressing, with a sick mum and apparently useless and somewhat bullying father. The son was full of life but the parents couldn't support that, really. Hard to watch and I skipped through much of it.

But I wanted to see how it ended, and the ending was smashing. He got his freedom, away from the clutches of this woman who, as he saw it, took his father away from him from the start and dominated his life. Sure, she can cook, but she uses it to control people, as evidenced by the endless big dishes of food plunked down one after the other. And then she tried to do it again when his destiny moment opened before him. And he gloriously refused it, her, and the rural situation he wanted nothing to do with. "I"m your mother"? THe height of arrogance, another power trip. No wonder he gladly walked away to where he could have his own life without her cloying attitude. Helena did a good job of capturing this clueless yet manipulative woman.

reply

[–] meadowlark54 11 years ago

Nigel was very cold to Mrs. Potter at the end, and she didn't deserve that, but she wasn't completely blameless either. Like Nigel's father, she didn't have any patience with him. Her efforts to win Nigel's acceptance were weak because she was only concerned about her own feelings, not his. When he resisted her efforts, she was very quick to call him a brat and issue threats, rather than patiently attempting to win him over in time with kindness and compassion. Wearing his dead mother's apron right in front of a grieving child showed an appalling lack of respect for his feelings. The irony here is that she could have used her skill as a great cook to bond with Nigel by helping him, but she didn't think of that. He even asked for her advice about lemon meringue pie, but instead of helping him she discouraged him in a mean-spirited way because of a grudge against him and her own insecurities. When his dad died, her kindness might not have been entirely sincere. She said they could cook together and she would make it all up to him, which is like admitting she didn't treat him properly all along. He didn't believe this new attitude of hers would last, but when she told him she was his mother, he didn't have to say "you are nobody", that was mean. He could have respectfully disagreed and said "no, you are not my mother".

reply

[–] Jes' Sayin' (6544) 5 years ago

Really the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. Both of them felt threatened and nobody -- including the father -- had the ability to clear it up.

reply